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March 5, 2013

New Spectrem Service Connects Investors and Financial Advisors

Find an Advisor is designed to remove guesswork from evaluating financial professionals

Responding to growing demand from affluent investors for online financial information and advice, Spectrem’s online Millionaire Corner last week introduced an online service to look for and vet individual advisors who are members of the site.

Investors using the new service, Find an Advisor, can search the database for a potential advisor by state, specialty and professional designation. Personalized videos and profiles cover such matters as each advisor’s credentials, investment philosophy, way of working with clients and links to regulatory filings.

“Our Find An Advisor service meets investors where they increasingly spend their time, which is online and often using social media and mobile devices,” Catherine McBreen, Millionaire Corner’s president, said in a statement.

Recent studies have shown that wealthy investors are looking to the Internet and social media for access to sophisticated investment advice, a trend wealth management professionals ignore to their disadvantage.

Spectrem said it had created Millionaire Corner, its online investment center, and the new service for connecting advisors and investors in response to its own research that showed the following:

64% of ultrawealthy investors, with at least $5 million in net worth not including their primary residence, evaluate financial firms and seek investing information online

60% of millionaire investors, with $1 million to $5 million in net worth, use tablets to research investments, and 43% seek financial advice online

39% of millionaire investors who are 44 or younger regularly read financial blogs, and 21% rely more on social media than on traditional media for information.

Spectrem’s statement said Millionaire Corner had to put aside plans to post client survey results on Find an Advisor after failing to secure approval to do so from the SEC. It said Millionaire Corner in the future would conduct a client survey for each advisor, then share the results directly with the advisor.